The Third Rail
and
the Kingdom of Heaven

“HARD
SAYINGS”
There are many
… “hard sayings” … in Holy Scripture.
That is to say, there are
many passages, parables, and other vital teachings of Christ and Holy
Mother Church that, if we heard them from the ambo in
Church — and we don’t — we would rather not hear.
We will get into some, and we promise you that modern,
perverse, and effete social sensitivities — together social correctitude
— will be deeply offended, even scandalized, and that some will be
outraged that the Church and God so much as uttered them
— even made them obligatory!
Following John XXIII’s infamous “aggiornamento,” or “bringing
up to date” what had never been outdated — the Catholic
Church, following Vatican II, largely expunged concepts and doctrines
deemed “offensive” to the non-Catholic World, from Catholic teaching
— and while these core beliefs are clearly and repeatedly indited
in Holy Scripture, the history of the Church, affirmed in Patristics,
and kept inviolable in the Sacred Deposit of Faith, you will never hear
reference to them: not at Mass, not in any homily, not in CCD or Religious
Education, not in Catholic seminaries, and certainly not from the new
Vatican appended with a “II”.
Vatican II muzzled God — and instead of His untainted Word,
gave us a “revisionist”, sanitized, and vastly-abridged rendition of
the Bible increasingly conformed to the prevailing values of “the World”
which ever hated Christ and those who followed Him.1
This is not to say that such “hard” and displeasing verses no longer
exist in the Catholic Bible, only that they are never appealed to or
so much as mentioned in any contemporary Catholic religious discourse,
either at the ambo or the seminary.
Order of Battle
In the Book of Job we are reminded
that “The life of man upon earth is a warfare”
2 Holy Mother
Church understood this from the beginning, and testimony to this enmity
between the World and God is inscribed the in the blood of
the Martyrs.
Holy Mother Church ever reminded us of this perpetual Order of Battle
and the array of our enemies: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
But that is not taught anymore either.
When it was taught, it is notable that the
“World” came first (ideologies, social remedies, cultures,
inculturation, multi-culturalism, science, theories, politics, parties,
public policies, gender theories, hyper-egalitarianism, sexual fluidity
…). It was the logically necessary antagonist to which the Church first
succumbed. Once the “Windows of the Church were thrown open” (John XXIII)
to the World, the miasma of the World flowed in while the Faithful and
the Religious flowed out.
After “the World” subverted the Church, the second onslaught
quickly followed: “The Flesh” — “Free Love” … the mantra of the “groovy”
60’s and 70’s which ushered in abortion, STDs, drugs, derangement, “tune
in, turn, on, and drop out”, hippies and “acid” — leaving ravaged bodies
and minds as so many tatters of a concept once deemed a “Person” made
in the image of God.
How “devilishly” clever it was, as though following some
diabolically Hegelian dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) — which
brings us to the third point and our third nemesis: “the Devil”
— who, of course, has never left, and who fanned the flames of the
accumulating madness that ensued — and now may even be wearing pontificals
in Rome.
Like Hell (his abode — to which no one goes after Vatican
II), he does not exist anymore either. As it has been often stated,
his greatest achievement is his convincing us that he does not exist
(of course with the help of the academic “periti” and non-Catholics
who advised and directed the apparently stultified Council fathers).
If satan does not exist, eo ipso, Hell is a fiction, too. Fictions
are, in fact, routinely homilized at Mass (“Jesus loves you just the
way you are.”) — but not these fictions. Why speak of what does not
exist and which, therefore, has no influence upon you, let alone an
eschatological bearing.
How to Recognize 600 Volt Homilies at once:
-
They do not assure us of our salvation.
-
They do not canonize us before we
are dead.
-
The question of our trajectory, and
to what eternal habitation, still remains open.
-
The devil exists and lusts after your
soul and will do anything and everything to see you rot in Hell
with him.
-
Hell exists and people go there.
-
Mortal Sin is real and many people
are guilty of it. It is the death of the soul to God. If you die
in the state of Mortal Sin, you will go to Hell.
-
Holy Confession is the ordinary means
and necessary Sacrament for the remission of your sins.
A “third-rail” homily would begin with, let us say, Saint
Paul’s address to the Philippians:
“With
fear and trembling work out your salvation”
(2.12)
— to mention nothing of the numerous admonitions from our Blessed Lord
that do not merely “suggest,” but clearly warn us in no uncertain terms
of eschatological realities like Hell that we may find both appalling
and unacceptable — while being undeniably true.
Why do I call such Homilies and Biblical verses “Third Rail”?
Simple: if your priest or pastor
touches upon them he is liable to be “cancelled”
by his bishop, if not pope Francis himself. As a priest, his faculties
will be effectively killed. They will be withdrawn by his “progressive”
bishop (apart from a mere handful, are there really any other
types of bishops in America? In the world?); they will no longer be
able to publicly celebrate Mass, hear Confessions, or administer any
of the other sacraments. In the way of being a priest, they will be
effectively dead — however much the sacramental character imprinted
upon their soul during ordination can never be erased.
This deliberate negligence in homilies
appears to be equally calculated to
diminish not just the awareness of sin, but the sense
of sin, and the corresponding sense of responsibility that comes
with it, within the faithful. Most Catholics, we must concede, do not
read Sacred Scripture (the Bible) and have been poorly catechized by
the post Vatican II Church, if at all catechized at all. Their
knowledge of the Bible largely comes from readings at Mass, and through
the homilies that should emphasize what was taught in the Gospel and
the Epistles. Most often, however, this is not the case at all. If the
homily appeals in any way to the readings, it is only a superficial
segue to something ultimately unrelated to them, something much closer
to the heart of the homilist than the text and significance of the readings.
It is what is important to him for the day, not what is important
for the faithful to know.
Why this is so, that is to say, why the faithful are deliberately denied
the entirety of Sacred Scripture as it pertains to things that
they must know in order to avoid them, and things that they
must not do in order not to offend God and consequently arrive
in Hell, but to please Him and to go to Heaven, is a story explored
elsewhere in detail.
“Third Rail verses” in Holy Scripture, in short, are verses to be avoided
at all costs: they are fatal to the one touching upon them much as the
third rail in an American subway system exceeds 600 volts and, if simply
touched upon, will instantly electrocute. Such verses, of course, precede
Third-Rail Homilies — to be avoided for the same reasons
Three of the Four Last Things:
Death, Judgment, and Hell … but not Heaven
Few wish to hear of the first three. Your
pastor knows this. To preach about or to dwell upon such verses is likely
to cause “discomfort” — indignation and perhaps even “outrage” within
— and consequently diminish — the congregation. They will go elsewhere,
and find another parish and another priest who will assure them of their
salvation (despite what Christ says), their invincible goodness, and
their being “The lights of the world” and “The salt of the earth”. Such
parishes and priests, of course, abound.
“Not Open”
Any hint
that Heaven may be closed to some, if not many, is mocked as “pre-Vatican
II nonsense” — in spite of Christ’s telling us so:
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the
way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by
it are many … [and] the gate is narrow and the way is hard that
leads to life, and those who find it are few”
(St. Matthew 7.13-14)
This is but one of many, many, third-rail verses found in all four Gospels
and most of the Epistles (Letters).
“Surely,” we console ourselves, “a good, merciful, and
forgiving God would not allow such things to happen!”
To which we reply: Why, then, did He say them?
We do not seek God,
but a heaven with a god to our liking and made in our image. This is
another way of saying “We ourselves will be our own gods for we are
more merciful, more loving, more forgiving, more just, than the God
we find in Sacred Scripture. We will not bend our knee before that God,
but our own god: ourselves! We will find or make priests and churches
that “affirm us”, comfort us, and tell us that our illusions are realities
or that reality is just an illusion.
This is further to say that we will continue to maintain
the illusions and fabrications that comfort us, but cannot possibly
save us — rather than defer to “hard sayings” which are enunciated to
the end of saving us and bringing us to genuine happiness (Heaven).
Other factors enter into this obstinate refusal to accept
the “hard sayings”, and we point to them with the deepest sorrow: these
“hard sayings” do not simply involve us — they involve those whom we
have loved — and who have died.
Some of them, perhaps most of them did not accept these
“hard sayings” either. Some of them led extraordinarily sinful lives,
heedless of God and man. Some were little more than evil. Many simply
did not believe, or would not relinquish what they perceived to be their
freedom to do as they wish, or simply scorned religion altogether. But
we loved them — and love always invests us in the being of another.
Hence our pain.
All or None
Nevertheless, a choice was placed
before them, as it is placed before us now: to accept the “hard sayings”
as earnestly as we accept the more comforting ones. We cannot choose
which teachings of Christ we will accept any more than we can choose
what we wish to be real or true. We must accept all of them or none
of them. God does not tamper with our freedom, nor interfere with our
choices. We are free to accept or reject, but in either case our choice
is total. We cannot accept or reject the part without accepting or rejecting
the whole, for the parts are integral constituents of the whole.
Much more to the point, the terms are not of our own making
— they have been divinely instituted. Salvation is not a referendum
any more than Heaven is a democracy. The means of attaining it have
been clearly defined by Christ — as well as the means of losing it.
The choice is yours alone.
“Lest they also come into this place of torments”
To return to the discussion of those
we love and who have died, here we encounter the most painful legacy
imaginable: our realization that the road they chose was the one that
was “broad and easy” … To imagine them in torment everlasting is beyond
our ability to comprehend without verging on despair.
“How wicked of you,” you tell me, “to
compound the grief of those in bereavement! Have they not suffered enough
by the loss of one loved?”
No. It is not wicked. It is painful beyond
words. It is sorrowful beyond description. None of us may presume
salvation, for to do so is to presume upon God’s mercy, itself a mortal
sin! Indeed, I identify more with the departed than the surviving. I
have no assurance of salvation, for I refuse to presume on God’s mercy
and may yet myself be accounted among the lost — even as Saint Paul
himself feared. (1 Corinthians 9.26)
Should I fear less?
There are indeed those who go to Hell — and likely many
(or Christ is a liar). We must allow this realization to motivate us
with all the more urgency to bring those still with us to Christ, lest
they, too, choose “the road that is broad and easy” and add to our sorrow
even greater sorrow still.
This was the whole point of the Parable of Lazarus and
the Rich Man: the rich man in Hell implores Abraham:
“send him
[Lazarus] to my father’s house, for I have five brethren, that
he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torments.”
(Saint Luke 16. 27-28)
Can we do less?
We call our children out of a burning
house — we will suffer burns ourselves and incredible pain to save them
— but when they verge on a Lake of Fire that is the Second Death
1 from
which there is no return ... we say, we do, nothing. We do not
call them back. We do not rush in horror to bring them back! Why? How
is this possible?
So much for our own convictions; for the measure of our
own faith!
Now we come to it: the painful recognition that our love
for them is not greater than our fear of the frowning face of “the World”
... that no longer has any room for God ... or His children.
Say it is not so!
Pay attention
to the third rail!
Ignore it at your peril.
This applies equally to priest and pew alike. If you would smugly choose
your “comfort zone” as a Catholic, you would do well to consider ...
well, its location — as well as its “duration.”
Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
Printable PDF Version
Comments? Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
___________________________
1
“If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before you.” (St. John
15.18)
2
Job 7.1

Totally
Faithful to the Sacred Deposit of Faith entrusted
to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse 3.8)
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